


The Moving Van Job

by fabrega



Category: Leverage
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-17
Updated: 2012-02-17
Packaged: 2017-10-31 08:21:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/341950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fabrega/pseuds/fabrega
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eliot nearly answers the phone the first time Hardison calls. He has it in his hand and is looking at it when he hears Nate's voice in his head, saying that the team needs to put some distance between them for safety's sake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Moving Van Job

**Author's Note:**

> Set between the First and Second David Jobs.

Eliot nearly answers the phone the first time Hardison calls. He has it in his hand and is looking at it when he hears Nate's voice in his head, saying that the team needs to put some distance between them for safety's sake. They'd had to _blow up the office_ , for christssake; even though something in him is itching to go to IYS and punch some holes in their walls, it is probably best if they take a little time off, do their own things for a while. So he frowns and takes a deep breath and lets Hardison go to voicemail.

On the third straight day of phone calls, Eliot picks up. "What the hell, Hardison," he says, his voice low. "It's been, like, two weeks."

There is a slight pause--probably because Hardison has okay pattern recognition and hadn't actually expected him to pick up the phone. "Sorry, man. I can hang up and call again tomorrow."

"It'll still be two weeks tomorrow," Eliot replies. "Why're you calling? You got a job?"

Another pause. "Not...exactly. You still in LA?"  


*

  


"You rented a moving van?!" Hardison exclaims, worried, when Eliot shows up in the lobby of his apartment building, twirling a pair of shiny keys. "Nate said to lay low, and I'm pretty sure that a moving van is a red-flag purchase."

Eliot looks at him pointedly. "I didn't rent that truck, Mr. Colin Baker did," and he flashes Hardison one of the multiple fake drivers' licenses he has.

Hardison grins at this.

"And besides," Eliot continues, not quite sure what that smile is about, "You weren't going to move all your shit in that fancy little foreign car you drive."

"Hey, it gets amazing gas mileage!" Hardison protests, mock-offended, although he does concede the point. "Besides, I didn't want to hire movers in case, y'know, they weren't really movers." That's understandable; Sterling's men had roughed both of them up pretty good. Eliot wasn't exactly gung-ho to run into them again.

"Are we waiting on anybody else?" Eliot asks, his voice the tiniest bit hopeful. He's been in Hardison's apartment and remembers the sofas and the pool table.

Hardison shakes his head, sort of embarrassed. Eliot realizes that there are probably only three or four guys in LA _he_ knows well enough to ask for help if he ever needed to move, and _he_ actually leaves the house regularly. He sets his shoulders, offers Hardison what he hopes is a reassuring smile, and heads for the elevator.  


*

  
If life were like the movies, the next few hours would be summed up with a well-edited thirty-second montage: there would be an angled shot from the hallway into Hardison's apartment and, time-lapse style, the viewer could watch the boxes and furniture disappear from the visible room, moved out piece by piece. As it is, the ordeal is only made tolerable by Hardison's promise of wings and beer and at least one fake ID that doesn't say that Eliot is from Texas.

Hardison has less stuff than Eliot had remembered--looking back, most of the clutter he remembered was probably bottles of orange soda--but the pool table is a bitch to hoist onto the assortment of moving dollies Hardison has rigged together with bungee cord, and it's even tougher get into the building's freight elevator. When it finally _is_ into the elevator, they have to sit on top of it, cross-legged like kindergarteners, until they reach the ground floor. ("It'd take more time to take it apart and put it back together at the new place," Hardison assures him, but Eliot is dubious.)

When he has set down the last of the boxes in the new apartment, Eliot finally takes a good look around. "This is some place, man."

Hardison grins. "It'll look even better when I've got the flatscreens set up over here," he says, gesturing at one wall of the what will presumably be the living room.

"It's pretty big," Eliot comments, sticking his head into several of the rooms they hadn't put boxes in.

"Lotta TVs, man, _and_ the price was right. This really bigger than your place?"

Hardison isn't looking at Eliot; he's turning around the apartment with his hands on his hips, and Eliot can guess that he's picturing the home theater setup. This is probably just as well, because Eliot's jaw works for a second as he tries to figure out a reply that comes down somewhere between "I get by," and "When things go south, I put all the furniture I own into a storage unit owned by a guy I know I can trust and live out of hotels for a while, just to be safe"--both of which are true, but neither of which sounds quite true _enough_. "I'm more of a simple guy," he says after a moment, punctuating the statement with a shrug. He shifts slightly back and forth as Hardison starts to dig through the boxes. "We done?" he asks.

"Have you had your beer and wings yet?" Hardison looks at him reprovingly, and when Eliot mumbles a negative, he responds, "Then we ain't done yet! I figured I could get, y'know, at least one TV set up and we could kick back and watch the game with our refreshments. Shouldn't be too long, I just need to find the box with the TV stuff in it."

"You don't need to wait for the cable guy to come install your 500 sports channels?" Eliot asks.

"Naw, my neighbor pays for that, I'm all set." Hardison's smile is smug. Eliot must look taken aback, because he continues dryly, "Really, after all we've done, you're surprised I steal cable from my neighbors."

"No, I'm more surprised you're not stealing cable directly from the Kremlin," Eliot shoots back.

"Man, there is some _weird shit_ on Russian cable," Hardison says, his eyes big and serious, and Eliot knows better than to ask questions like "How do you know?" and "Like what?"

"So should I just sit my ass on your sofa until you get this thing hooked up?"

Hardison pokes his head up from between a stack of boxes. "Shouldn't take too long."  


*

  
The next morning begins with a clatter and some quiet swearing. Eliot is used to waking up in places he doesn't quite recognize (although usually there is a lady) but today he is curled-up stiff, and the noises are usually more pleasant. He sits up suddenly, trying to be alert through a hazy headache. He remembers last night now: setting up the TV had, of course, taken longer than Hardison had promised, so Eliot had gone out after the food and the beer. He'd come back with two buckets of spicy wings and a twenty-four pack of something cheap, and they'd caught the second half of the game and then they'd channel-surfed until they ended up on an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie marathon. They'd watched Terminator and Kindergarten Cop and then suddenly most of the twenty-four pack was gone. He remembers how he'd realized that he was too drunk to safely return the rental truck, and how Hardison had said that it was okay for him to just pass out on the sofa for the night.

At some point, Hardison must have haphazardly tossed a blanket over him. He doesn't remember that happening, but he is tangled up in it now. He kicks at the blanket and rubs his temples, willing the headache away, wondering how Hardison is making so much goddamn noise.

"Breakfast!" Hardison says, holding up two skillets and grinning as Eliot enters the kitchen. "We're having breakfast-flavored Hot Pockets and Tab!"

"Seriously?" Eliot actually flinches at the thought. He doesn't know what time it is, but it is too early for this.

Hardison makes a face back. "No, _of course not_. I'm gonna make waffles and bacon. What the hell kind of flavor do you think 'breakfast-flavored' is?!"

Eliot stifles a yawn into his shrug. "Who the hell eats Hot Pockets?"  


*

  
When Eliot finally leaves, the moving van has a parking ticket. He swears to himself, pulls his hat down tighter on his brow, idly kicks a tire.

His phone rings. He looks at the front, flips it open, tries to sound annoyed. "I just left your apartment three minutes ago."

It seems like the words pour out of Hardison before he can help it. "Look, man, I don't know what your place is like or if you can even get out of your lease without hittin' a bunch of dudes, but I have, like, five extra rooms here and I don't want to have to buy shit to put in them."

Eliot tilts his head and tries to keep the grin out of his voice as he replies, "Was there a question there, Hardison?"

"C'mon, man, don't be like that." Something whizzes past Eliot's head; he looks up and sees that Hardison has opened a window and is chucking little plastic army men at him out of it.

"What are you, five years old?" 

" _Eliot_." The joking has drained out of Hardison's voice, and Eliot recognizes the hard loneliness that filters in after it.

"I'll get my things," Eliot says, quicker than he means to. "Hey, what d'you know about getting rid of parking tickets?"

By the time Eliot pulls into the parking lot where he's supposed to return the moving truck, he's got a text from Hardison informing him that the ticket is taken care of. This makes Eliot smile at the woman behind the counter as he hands her the keys, even if she is scowling at him and informing him that rental trucks are in many ways like library books, most notably in that both have overdue fines. Eliot smiles at her a little harder (the way he'd always known how to but that Sophie had shown him how to perfect) and the woman is smiling back and apologizing for even having that stupid fine policy and reassuring him that the charges will be removed from his account.

Things are looking up.


End file.
